2013 Calvin Awards: Best Scene
By David Mumpower
February 19, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Oh Loki, you poor demigod with daddy issues. As cliché as the phrase may be, it sucks to be you. One moment, you have the entire Manhattan area crushed under your heel, world domination only days away. Then, one rage monster arrives. Suddenly, you have a headache that no amount of aspirin will remedy. Big Pharma has no cure for the Hulk Smash Blues.
Yes, “Puny God!” is our staff’s choice as the Best Scene of the year. While there is some division about whether we laud the entire Manhattan showdown or just the exuberance demonstrated in the GIF above, everyone loves to watch Hulk Smash! To wit, almost every voter included this scene somewhere on their ballot. It also received more first places than any other nominee. In a year where only three candidates for Best Scene earned multiple first place votes, we find unity on only one issue. We all love watching Hulk thrash his enemy like a rag doll. As such, “Puny God!” is our choice for Best Scene of the year by a whopping 70% margin.
The selling point of Zero Dark Thirty was known the moment the movie was announced. At some point, Seal Team Six would maneuver into position and invade Osama bin Laden’s compound. In the master bedroom of these premises, the soldiers would corner the world’s worst human being and they would shoot him. We knew about this back then and yet Kathryn Bigelow’s purposeful direction still hypnotized us during the movie. The gripping few minutes as the Seals touch down under cover of blackest night are as captivating as anything in the modern era of cinema. Braying farm animals, neighboring soldiers and tearful children all heighten the tension as the soldiers search for their prey. The Raid of the bin Laden compound is masterful, and we proudly honor it as the second best scene of the year.
I know you think your job is tough, but Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon demonstrate that there are much worse professions. Imagine if you were a control room operator televising a twisted version of The Hunger Games wherein a bunch of sexy teens have to die and in a specific order to boot. Now consider how claustrophobic you would feel if you were miles beneath the surface when a System Purge occurred. You know the System Purge I mean. It’s the one that lets all of the apparently not mythological creatures out of their carefully crafted cells. It’s the System Purge that changes your life from a boring routine of coffee breaks and friendly game-based wagers into, well, death by Merman. When your blood is funneling out some fish creature’s blowhole, THAT is a bad day at work. The Cabin in the Woods is a great movie from start to finish but the harrowing moments when chaos overwhelms humanity stand above the rest. System Purge is our choice for third Best Scene of the year.
Fourth and fifth place go to a pair of grim scenes, albeit for different reasons. Anne Hathaway’s already legendary performance of I Dreamed a Dream in Les Miserables finishes fourth. We cannot get enough of the factory worker collapsing under the pressure of being an absentee single mother. Forced into prostitution, she faces the grim fact that life has killed a dream she dreamed. Hey, we’ve all been there. Fifth place is the emergency surgery sequence in Prometheus. Our staff’s schism regarding the overall quality of Prometheus is well established by now. Even the most passionate detractors still acknowledge that Noomi Rapace’s alien childbirth sequence contains a terrifying couple of minutes of cinema.
One of the most lauded movies of the year as well as the one of most unheralded earn sixth and seventh place this year. Silver Linings Playback provides some fascinating storytelling as the befuddling parents of Patrizio Solitano Jr. never warm to his new love interest, Tiffany. Eventually, she grows frustrated enough with Patrizio Solitano Sr. that she describes in great detail exactly how wrong he has been on the subject of her being bad luck. Jennifer Lawrence has never been funnier.
Seventh place goes to one of BOP’s favorite smaller films of 2012, 10 Years. This Anchor Bay Films release features a surprising amount of famous actors (Channing Tatum, Justin Long, Rosario Dawson, Kate Mara, Anthony Mackie and many more) playing people preparing for their high school’s 10 year reunion. Actor Oscar Isaac portrays Reeves, an accomplished singer-songwriter who feels lingering regret over his relationship with former classmate Elise (Kate Mara). He is eventually persuaded to perform a song entitled Never Had, his first hit. After a few moments of eye contact between Reeves and Elise, it becomes readily apparent that she was his muse, the inspiration for the song. This is a magical movie that reminds our staff of a former second place finisher in the category in 2008, Falling Slowly from Once.
The rest of our top ten includes scenes from 21 Jump Street, Argo and Skyfall. The 21 Jump sequence we love is…let’s just call it Stage 4. You can fill in the blanks on the specific description of said stage. All BOP wants to say in our family-friendly awards announcement is that Brie Larson is hysterical. Ninth place goes to the almost too-tense airport denouement of Argo. Just get on the freakin’ plane already! And 10th place is the titular showdown at Skyfall. The tips of the cap to the history of James Bond are particularly appreciated, even as 007 blows his family heritage to bits.
The list of near misses in this category is staggering. We like the introduction of Silva and Bond in Skyfall, Katniss’ volunteering as tribute in The Hunger Games and sharing a heaping bowl of shawarma in The Avengers. We also were stunned by the revelation of Cid’s true potential in Looper, entertained by the climactic fight in Goon and titillated by Daniel’s erotic depiction of his encounter with Margot. We also love the final performance in Pitch Perfect, the upside down steering sequence in Flight, the Thunder Buddies song from Ted, Tiffany’s dance routine in Silver Linings Playbook and the Tunnel Drive in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. 2012 had as many memory scenes as I can ever recall in a single year. Any of these 11 honorable mention sequences would have been a serious contender during the average year.
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Calvins Intro
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Album
Best Cast
Best Character
Best Director
Best Overlooked Film
Best Picture
Best Scene
Best Screenplay
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best TV Show
Best Use of Music
Best Videogame
Breakthrough Performance
Worst Performance
Worst Picture